“Carnaval” is a tricky problem for the interpreter. These tiny vignettes
require pinpointing of their precise character – no time
for easing your way into each new piece. By the time you’ve
done that it’s gone. This is not music that can be played
literally. There are rallentandos and tempo changes practically
every other bar and they have to have a sense. Given that
intervention is inevitable, we are going to react very personally
to the performer’s decision. I thought Alicia de Larrocha
started out rather slowly, even if the marking is maestoso,
but then she dances away splendidly. In the first few pieces
I followed with a score and saw a lot of things I would have
liked differently. Then I decided to close my eyes and just
listen. I found that in fact she can carry the listener with
her; what look like fussy interpretative points if you watch
them happening on paper sound perfectly convincing when you
simply let her guide you. This is what performing is all
about. I won’t say it’s the greatest “Carnaval” ever – “Pierrot” is
slow and doleful, the “Papillons” are heavily-winged – but
its heart is in the right place and it builds up well.

I had rather expected to find de Larrocha’s Schumann warmly reflective,
more Eusebius than Florestan. Instead, the tumbling impetuosity
of the seventh “Kreisleriana” piece finds her at her best
and, if anything, it is a sense of inwardness I miss in this
performance. The middle section of no.1 is too loud and I
kept hoping, during the central part of no.3, that she would
melt into liquid loveliness at last. On the other hand, she
does not fail to provide hushed, intimate poetry in the sixth
piece, so perhaps her intention is to make this the real
heart of the performance and not pre-empt it earlier on.
The final piece is grand when the music is forte but somehow
lacks delicacy and impish humour in pianissimo moments. Again,
a good “Kreisleriana” but not the greatest you’ve ever heard.

You won’t have heard the Novelette much at all, though I did
review a fine set of all eight by Craig Sheppard some time ago
(see review).
At nearly twelve minutes it belies its name and is almost
a “Kreisleriana” in miniature. Here de Larrocha is absolutely
at her best, balancing the Florestan and Eusebius elements
superbly to create a single, passionate utterance.

She is fine, too, in “Faschingsschwank”, sonorous and upfront
in I, III and V, wistful and tender in the Romanze, passionate
in the Intermezzo.

The “Allegro in B minor” is not a work you often hear except when
somebody is recording Schumann’s piano music complete. It
seems to me a fussy piece, too full of details and changes
of direction to make a coherent whole. I don’t think this
impression is de Larrocha’s fault. The popular “Romance no.2” is
warmly done but is another case where I find de Larrocha
a shade too extrovert.

The trouble with the “Fantasie” is the recording. Above mezzo
forte it becomes clangy, as if the pianist is regularly going
through
the tone. This happens, not only in the tumult of the central
march where a certain stridency could be tolerated, but in
such sublime pages as the opening of the last movement. Since
the recording is chronologically in between the others I
am at a loss to understand this. Perhaps Kingsway Hall is
not ideal for piano recordings. Maybe the size of a hall
that has hosted many famous choral/orchestral recordings
induced the pianist to force the tone in order to reach the
back seats. Maybe the producer/engineer team of James Walker
and Philip Wade, responsible only for this recording, was
not sympathetic to the de Larrocha sound. Whatever the reason,
I found it difficult to sit back and enjoy a performance
which in any case seemed to me too middle-of-the road. This
is a work where you have to live dangerously and I must say
I would go for Martha Argerich here. Some find her over the
top, I know. If you prefer young love to be recollected in
tranquillity, go to Rubinstein or Arrau and get it in style.

So far I’ve kept away from the comparisons. But in all truth, fine
as de Larrocha is in “Faschingsschwank”, Richter is pure
magic. His melodies soar that little bit more, with that
extra bit of expressive freedom. In “Kreisleriana” Horowitz
finds an infinitely wider range of expression. Schumann is
a composer of extremes and the middle way doesn’t work. I
haven’t a particular recommendation for “Carnaval” but I
think Rubinstein’s blend of elegance, humour and warmth will
disappoint nobody. Rubinstein also offers a beautifully sung
F sharp Romanze.

I’m glad to have the set for the Novelette, but that’s only twelve
minutes and as a critic I didn’t have to pay for it. My advice
is to get the complete “Noveletten” from Sheppard.

I found more to admire in Alicia de Larrocha’s Mozart than
many of my fellow-critics. Over her Schumann I fear I must
side with
the majority view that outside her Spanish repertoire she
is good but not supreme.

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